How I Set Up My Recording Space for Optimal Creative Freedom

How you set up your recording space is extremely personal to you. I love scrolling through pictures of snazzy looking studios and seeing pictures of how other people set up their creative space. But at the end of the day, the way I set up my studio is the result of tons of micro-adjustments made over years to better meet my goal, which is to remove barriers between having a creative idea, and being able to record it.

Attic Studios panoramic shot

When I’m feeling inspired, I want all my tools at the ready. It drives me crazy when I have to stop the flow just to set up and sound check a mic, or set up a bunch of bus routing while starting a new session in Logic Pro. Making music in a flow state is one of the greatest feelings, and you can’t argue with the results of a musician being totally “locked-in.” I’ve tried to set up my studio space to support this workstyle. 

At the heart of my recording setup is a Presonus StudioLive 32S that allows me 32 total inputs which is more than enough for me to have everything I need plugged into the board with leftover inputs to accommodate whatever extra gear other people bring in. Very near the computer is my Moog Subphatty synth and 88-key midi keyboard. This combination of analog synth and full midi keyboard makes it dead simple to record an idea. Between the realistic keyboard emulations in Keyscape, the endless synth possibilities in Vital, and good ol’ analog synth from the Moog, I can easily access just about any keyboard sound I’m hearing in my head.

My pedal board and amp head are also placed near the main computer area. The amp head is separate from my speaker cabs, so I can control the sound from the mixing area, but have the cabinets mic'd up farther away. This way I can crank the amp a bit without destroying my hearing.

A stereo set of ribbon mics and/or a large diaphragm condenser are usually set up in the middle of the room for whenever I need to quickly record some percussion or an acoustic guitar or some scratch track. They can also double as room mics for the drum kit which is farther away. Since they’re in the middle of the room, it’s easy to move them around and use them as ‘extra’ mics anywhere in the room.

The mics around the drum kit change frequently because I love experimenting with drum sounds, but there’s always some configuration of mics ready to record a drum part.

With a miked drum kit, guitar/bass amps, aux mics, midi and analog keyboards all at the ready, I’m able to record any idea I have at any time! Just downstream from the instruments/mics is the computer where I record into Logic. I have a few project templates created so it’s quick for me to create a new project with all the tracks and audio routing already set up. I’ve found that having a few templates available that are more tailored towards specific project types has been helpful. I record a lot of instrumental backing tracks for practicing soloing which uses a very similar workflow every time so I have a template for backing tracks; I have a “full” template that has drums/bass/guitar/keyboard/vocal tracks set up, basic reverb/delay sends, and a basic channel strip plugin pre-loaded on most channels for simple but flexible mixing; and a bare-bones template that just has those mid-room aux mics and a midi keyboard channel, which I would use the same way people use the voice memo app on their phone to record a quick demo idea.

Earlier in this post, I mentioned how this setup supports working in a flow-state but it’s important to note that the setup isn’t responsible for creating or maintaining the flow-state. When in flow, you need to be able keep things moving and that means having a deep understanding of your workspace and tools. Knowing how to use the gear you have is far more important than getting new gear or a better setup. For example, I recently made the jump to being able to create separate custom headphone mixes for multiple people while recording which is way better than the monitoring situation I had in the past. However, it’s new to me, and managing multiple headphone mixes throughout a recording session was a little clunky at first since I wasn’t used to it. Even though it’s technically a more flexible setup, having a deeper understanding and comfort with managing multiple headphone mixes is the more important thing for maintaining a flow-state while recording.